Thread: Hypocrisy?

South African govt threatens to take land from "abusive" farmers

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) — South Africa's agriculture ministry caused a flurry of disquiet among the country's farmers this week by threatening those who mistreat their workers with land expropriation.

"We are obviously disturbed by the persistent reports of abuses on farms," Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana told a national conference in Johannesburg on Thursday of the Food and Allied Workers Union that represents farm workers.

"This is in keeping with the law of the land: for those people who are not keeping (within) the law, the government has the right to expropriate."

Land reform and redistribution are sensitive topics in a country where the minority white population still owns the vast majority of land -- a relic of oppressive colonial and apartheid policies.

Xingwana came out in support of her deputy minister, Dirk du Toit, who was criticised by opposition parties for having referred in parliament the previous day to a lingering "medieval" attitude among farmers.

"My deputy minister knows what he is talking about," Xingwana told the conference.

In response to a question about farmers who lay off and evict workers unlawfully, Du Toit told MPs on Wednesday: "Those people who don't want to hear, we are not only going to take them to court, we are going to also take their land away from them."

This drew a sharp response from the country's largest farmers' union, Agri SA, which claims a membership of 30,000.

"Since the beginning of the year not a single case of illegal farm eviction has come to Agri SA's attention. Our conclusion is therefore that the Deputy Minister also regards legal evictions as unfair", it said in a statement.

Agri SA said it would raise its objections with President Thabo Mbeki and demand a clarification or retraction.

"Let them write a letter to the president and let's discuss the issue," the president's spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga said on Friday.

The main opposition Democratic Alliance has slammed Du Toit's statement as racist for implying that all white farmers abuse their workers.

"As a senior member of the (ruling) ANC, he (Du Toit) stood up and made racist remarks about white farmers, insinuating that all of them assault their farm workers," the party's land affairs spokesman Maans Nel told parliament on Thursday.

"What sort of message are these senior people of the ANC sending out to farmers who are overwhelmingly positive about land reform and South Africa?"

Hostility is rife in South Africa's farming sector, with concern about rural crime and farmer murders on the one hand, and complaints of ill treatment of farm workers, mostly black and coloured (of mixed race) on the other.

"There are serious tensions," Xingwana said in January.

Some white farmers fear they are the political targets of farm murders, 86 of which were reported in the past financial year.

And farm workers often complain of ill treatment by farmers whom they accuse of impounding their livestock, refusing to allow them to bury their family members on farms, or demolishing their homes.

Mbeki's government aims to redistribute 30 percent of the country's agricultural land to blacks by 2014.

But the pace has been criticised as too slow by many. Some critics fear that growing impatience among landless blacks could cause a repeat of the violent land grabs in neighbouring Zimbabwe in which more than 4,000 white farmers were ousted at the turn of the century, causing a dramatic downturn in agricultural production.

The South African authorities do admit that threats of expropriation have had beneficial effects, with land owners being more inclined to accept the government's price offer for their properties.

"These farmers have become more supportive because we are cracking the whip," the country's chief land claims commissioner Tozi Gwanya told AFP last year.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gIl ... 5oKynqHWMw

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It looks like the communist ANC is running things rather nicely for themselves. I wouldn't be at all surprised if South Africa changed its name in the future to Lumumba, or some such. Will starvation soon follow as it has in the former Zimbabwe? Only time will tell...

Originally Posted by Bowman

Which party is the invader and which native? Depends on your perspective, right?

Have you lost your mind, young man? Africa has always been the native land of Africans! Dutch Boers and Brits are not native to South Africa!

If you say the whites are the invaders, then do you consider whites in the US are invaders also?

Please read Post number 7 in this thread...

Yes, there were people there already, many of them were black, some were brown.

The whole coast, down and around the Cape, had trade with the Arabs and the Indians. Kiswahili has many borrowed words from their interactions. No doubt, some merchants set up shop in Africa and started families. And so on...

They were all supressed the same way Americans supressed the American Indians.

Are you talking about those invades that we call Boers? The British?
I think the operative word is 'oppress' instead of 'suppress'.

This was a couple hundred years ago, later after the South Africans started mining they decided to import other Africans for mine labor.

OK... Most, for sure, came with the legal permission of SA.

Is this correct or not? What am I leaving out?

You are correct in one sense. You didn't state that it was a couple hundred years ago.

Wasn't this thread about South Africa? Why do you bring up Jim Crow?

Because I don't see any difference between Jim Crow and apartheid. Do you have a better definition?

I was saying we will have to give affirmative action to amnestied illegal aliens and their kids.

False. In Texas, Hispanics are considered white. Back in the '40s they were allowed to go to white schools under the Treaty of Guadalupe. In the prison system they are counted as white so "the system" can say that they are arresting just as many whites as blacks. When in fact, they are arresting Latinos. I am in law enforcement, I know what I'm talking about.

I said nothing about black Americans. What is you point?

I made a definitive comparison between Africans on both "sides of the pond". American Indians to me are of no comparison.

There are two groups of non-whites in South Africa, the original inhabitants who I compare to American Indians, and the imported black and Asian workers who are similar to our legal and illegal (mainly Latino) immigrants today. I was not comparing either of the groups to black Americans.

I see your point. Please read Post Number 7 in this thread really carefully.

What years did you live there? I was there for one month in 1985.

I lived there from 80-83, 88-89, 94-95

Originally Posted by TheFomorian

The Minister summed it up very nicely.

So then, you are in league with the ANC minister. The ANC: a communist organization. May I remind you that communism is the most lethal ideology the planet has ever seen with the deaths of upwards of 100 million last century. And you are on their side, backing these mass murderers. What's next for you? A youtube video love letter from Pol Pot? Championing Adolf Hitler next, are you? Have you no shame?

Originally Posted by Owen_Bucks

So then, you are in league with the ANC minister. The ANC: a communist organization. May I remind you that communism is the most lethal ideology the planet has ever seen with the deaths of upwards of 100 million last century. And you are on their side, backing these mass murderers. What's next for you? A youtube video love letter from Pol Pot? Championing Adolf Hitler next, are you? Have you no shame?

Look whose now putting words in people's mouth!

I am a man of precision. If someone that I personally don't like, happens to say something I agree with, then so be it. That doesn't make me a card carrier or a cheerleader.

Owen Bucks, you are out of your league; I knew it from the first time you posted in this thread.

Unless you have something constructive, I will not abide your silly posts!

Good day!

(Just an assumption)

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

The words you cannot use on ALIPAC is expressed on Youtube!

Give me a break!

If you want a raw convo, PM me!

Originally Posted by Bowman

Originally Posted by TheFomorian

Originally Posted by Bowman

Well, I did spend some time in South Africa during the apartheid period, so I had a chance to learn about their history and culture.

Who did you learn this history from? The invaders or the Natives?

Which party is the invader and which native? Depends on your perspective, right? If you say the whites are the invaders, then do you consider whites in the US are invaders also?

The English, the English and the English.

They thought they could pull off what Alexander the Great did. They messed around in India, South Africa, Australia, The Middle East, France, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, the US, Hong Kong... Every time they stuck their imperialistic noses in, it's become a disaster for the recipient country.

They are the worst invaders of modern time. Not only that, they consumed irreplaceable resources like the Tigers in India, looted treasures like the Star of India Diamond, and they took every national treasure they could get their hands on like the Rosetta Stone, pieces of the Parthenon...

Dixie

Originally Posted by TheFomorian

I lived there from 80-83, 88-89, 94-95

Did you ever do the Argus Tour bicycle ride? It is the largest organized bike ride in the world. The hardest part is learning to ride on the left side of the road!

Originally Posted by Dixie

The English, the English and the English.

They thought they could pull off what Alexander the Great did. They messed around in India, South Africa, Australia, The Middle East, France, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, the US, Hong Kong... Every time they stuck their imperialistic noses in, it's become a disaster for the recipient country.

They are the worst invaders of modern time. Not only that, they consumed irreplaceable resources like the Tigers in India, looted treasures like the Star of India Diamond, and they took every national treasure they could get their hands on like the Rosetta Stone, pieces of the Parthenon...

Dixie

Originally Posted by Bowman

Did you ever do the Argus Tour bicycle ride? It is the largest organized bike ride in the world. The hardest part is learning to ride on the left side of the road!

No, I never had the pleasure.

First you post a link about impoverished whites in S.Africa. These are the same ones who willingly gave up control of the government peacefully to communists. Next you gloat over their suffering. Then you tell me it is VERBOTEN to mention the former Rhodesia. Next you praise a known communist. Then you invite me to engage in an expletive filled private posting match, I suppose because the fallacy that was your argument has became rather apparent.

If black South African communists(of which you are enamoured) adopt the Zimbabwean collectivist agriculture model, which border will the hungry black people next cross to escape starvation?

"If someone that I personally don't like, happens to say something I agree with, then so be it." is equivilent to saying that Hitler wasn't all bad becasue he made the trains run on time.